One of the attractions of Kindle books is serendipity - it is quite easy to find obscure writers who wrote well but for various reasons are now largely forgotten. One I came across this year was a writer of detective stories, Dorothy Bowers.
Dorothy Violet Bowers (1902-1948) was born in Leominster, the daughter of a confectioner. The family moved to Monmouth in 1903 where her father ran his own bakery until he retired in 1936. Educated at the Monmouth High School for Girls, Bowers received a scholarship for Oxford and, displaying the dogged tenacity evident throughout her short life, sat the Latin entrance exam three times before she was finally accepted.
There isn’t much online biographical information beyond the above link. Bing AI says there is no biography and a web search is liable to throw up a photo from an Italian site which is the wrong Dorothy Bowers.
What information there is suggests she had a difficult time of it before achieving success, only for a very promising career to be cut short by her untimely death from TB in 1948. Although she took on temporary jobs teaching history and English, her books suggest she never enjoyed it, maybe even loathed it.
THOUGH Miss Betony had been governess to successive generations of children for the best part of thirty-five years, there was not one of her pupils with whom she had since kept up a correspondence, except Grace Aram. The reasons for this were inherent in her own character. In the first place, she had no sentimental feelings about children, whose obscure cruelties had never ceased to make her wince. Privately, she thought them odious, and wondered increasingly why the thought should have to be private.
Fear for Miss Betony (1941)
“And then, still more surprising,” went on Miss Tidy, who had not heard him, “she continued with her sickening old routine job as if nothing had happened! It was the talk of the place.”
THOUGH Miss Betony had been governess to successive generations of children for the best part of thirty-five years, there was not one of her pupils with whom she had since kept up a correspondence, except Grace Aram. The reasons for this were inherent in her own character. In the first place, she had no sentimental feelings about children, whose obscure cruelties had never ceased to make her wince. Privately, she thought them odious, and wondered increasingly why the thought should have to be private.
Fear for Miss Betony (1941)
“And then, still more surprising,” went on Miss Tidy, who had not heard him, “she continued with her sickening old routine job as if nothing had happened! It was the talk of the place.”
“Dear me,” Lecky said jocularly, “is teaching as bad as all that?”
“I taught once. Believe me.” She sounded grim.
The Bells at Old Bailey (1947)
She also compiled crossword puzzles for John O’London Weekly under the pseudonym “Daedalus”, yet eventually Dorothy Bowers managed to have five books published, being sufficiently highly regarded to become a member of the Detection Club. I’ve read three of her books because she could certainly write, sometimes reminding me of Josephine Tey.
There is a robust clarity to her writing, which for this reader is a constant reminder that her times were not ours. In the first few chapters of Fear for Miss Betony, she paints a vivid picture of retired teacher Emma Betony in the midst of finding reasons to avoid the genteel temptations of an almshouse for “Decayed Gentlewomen”.
“I taught once. Believe me.” She sounded grim.
The Bells at Old Bailey (1947)
She also compiled crossword puzzles for John O’London Weekly under the pseudonym “Daedalus”, yet eventually Dorothy Bowers managed to have five books published, being sufficiently highly regarded to become a member of the Detection Club. I’ve read three of her books because she could certainly write, sometimes reminding me of Josephine Tey.
There is a robust clarity to her writing, which for this reader is a constant reminder that her times were not ours. In the first few chapters of Fear for Miss Betony, she paints a vivid picture of retired teacher Emma Betony in the midst of finding reasons to avoid the genteel temptations of an almshouse for “Decayed Gentlewomen”.
Part of Miss Betony's antipathy towards the security of almshouse life is that socially she is not quite a “decayed gentlewoman” and has no wish to see herself in that way, her father having been a grocer. The alternative is a increasingly untenable existence, surviving as best she can on a small income in Mrs Flagg’s London boarding house. After that, the parish.
It was nearly teatime when she got in. The hall was dim and a little odorous still. Noon, with its attendant aroma, lingered overlong at Mrs. Flagg’s. Emma glanced left at the table where the afternoon post might be found. There was nothing there, but as she went by to the stairs a door on the right opened and Mrs. Flagg, in a whispering brown dress, came out of her private sitting room. In the quick gush of light from her own window her rigid black hair looked more than ever like a wig. It seemed to Emma for one flickering second that she had moved towards the hall table. The next she was coming up to her with something in her hand. “Your letters, Miss Betony.” Her teeth were ingratiating.
Fear for Miss Betony (1941)
It was nearly teatime when she got in. The hall was dim and a little odorous still. Noon, with its attendant aroma, lingered overlong at Mrs. Flagg’s. Emma glanced left at the table where the afternoon post might be found. There was nothing there, but as she went by to the stairs a door on the right opened and Mrs. Flagg, in a whispering brown dress, came out of her private sitting room. In the quick gush of light from her own window her rigid black hair looked more than ever like a wig. It seemed to Emma for one flickering second that she had moved towards the hall table. The next she was coming up to her with something in her hand. “Your letters, Miss Betony.” Her teeth were ingratiating.
Fear for Miss Betony (1941)
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